Field of Use
The present invention relates to methods and systems relating to monitoring sessions taking place on a host system.
As discussed in the referenced patent application, it is important to have the ability to monitor sessions conducted between a remote operator and an administrator within a host system for providing remote maintenance and support services.
An important aspect to providing such services is the ability to monitor the input and output of programs. The UNIX Operating System version V Release 4, provides two command facilities that can be used to monitor work or save copies of program input and output. The first command facility is a tee command which splits its standard output into two or more streams and is generally used to save an intermediate step in a sequence of steps executed in a pipeline or inside the pipeline to monitor a part of a complex command. The second command facility is a script command which is used to copy everything displayed on a terminal device screen to a file and can be used to keep a record of part or all of a session.
These commands were found to be very limiting in that they do not provide the user with the overall ability to exercise a sufficiently large degree of flexibility and control as to how session monitoring is conducted. Also, since it is contemplated that these facilities be used individually for different situations, there is no opportunity of linking the facilities together. Therefore, there is a need to provide a high degree of flexibility and control in conducting session monitoring within a host system.
Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a highly modular and configurable session monitoring facility for a host system.
Accordingly, it is a more specific object of the present invention to provide a session monitoring facility which can be easily customized to meet user requirements for controlling how such session monitoring is to be conducted within a host system.